


Whispers

by wings128



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Anal Sex, Angst, Finger Sucking, Fingerfucking, First Kiss, First Time, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash, Neevebrody Fandom Forward Auction, Rimming, Team, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:39:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wings128/pseuds/wings128
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis had made Ronon soft.  Waiting in all-but-total darkness for an undetermined time frame <i>should</i> have been effortless, and it would’ve been; had he not been breathlessly waiting, urgently hoping the man in the next cell would wake and tell Ronon he was unhurt.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/Wings128/media/Art/r11wings128theroadnottakenwinner_zps36cb8657.png.html"></a><br/><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esteefee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/gifts).



> whose winning bid at the secret auction for Neevebrody was the instigation of this particular story. 
> 
> Enormous squishy hugs, bottles of preferred alcohol and blocks of NZ chocolate have to go to my three, ever supportive and inspiring legendary betas; without whom I would never have made it. Thank you so much millygal, stir_of_echoes, and auscaz for her beautiful art. *\o/*
> 
> [](http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/Wings128/media/Art/Whispersbyauscaz_zps0596f32a.png.html)

_“SHEPPARD!”_

John could taste the thought of Ronon’s name on his tingling puffy lips, a mere whisper of forever-silent regret.

He felt Ronon yank on his vest; managed to catch the fury in the younger man’s eyes, before dancing grey smudges conquered his sight.

~*~

Rodney fought the fierce grip that bit into his upper arm and anchored him against the warm smoothness of pale stone. His heart pounded frantically within the cage of his ribs, and a cold fear-soaked sweat blossomed all over his body; but he still tried to stand out of the Teyla-enforced crouch.

“Be still, Rodney,” her voice more of a hiss of feral sound than actual words. “We _must_ allow this.”

The electrical weapons, which had left crackling echoes jumping beneath his skin, must have interfered with his ears; because he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Surely, Teyla hadn’t suggested they let Sheppard and Ronon be dragged off by…by…

‘Who the _hell_ were those people?!’

“We would be of no help to Colonel Sheppard and Ronon if we give away our position. We would become captives ourselves, and there would be no one to warn Atlantis of this new threat.”

She was right. Teyla was right a high percentage of the time; not that Rodney minded. 

Teyla crouched, tense and silent, next to him in the shadows; she was often the sound voice of reason when Sheppard was ready to go in, all guns blazing. Rodney had never thought the day would come where he’d side with the colonel over Teyla’s cool life-preserving reason; but that was before he’d had to sit and watch, helplessly, as the toes of Sheppard’s boots disappeared into the shadows of the surrounding forestry.

He was on his feet, body still shielded by one of the six, ten-foot-high plinths that flanked the gate, about to step out when Teyla yanked him back. He was a reasonable man; well in this case at least. He’d listened to Teyla’s very sensible logic, but now they were gone and it was time for him to save the day. He was _the man,_ and the sooner they dialled home, the sooner a dozen marine-filled Jumpers could come to their aid.

“What!” He squawked, then cleared his throat in an attempt to cover the embarrassingly high-pitch of his voice.

“There is always a last guard, Rodney,” Teyla explained with a controlled tilt of her chin.

‘How did she project such calm?’ Rodney wondered, trying to ignore the trickle of sweat sliding down his spine, as he strained his gaze in the direction she’d gestured.

A deep indigo shadow stepped into view from behind the giant stone closest to the DHD. It moved through each degree of a compass’s points, shoulders alert and weapon raised, before backing off the way its fellows had gone.

Rodney’s breath rasped too loudly, his muscles frozen, his joints locked with realisation. If Teyla hadn’t stopped him, he’d be dead. ‘Or worse; facing the same fate as Sheppard and Ronon.’

“Thank you,” he whispered and tried to make the tight muscles of his face form a smile.

Teyla dipped her head in acknowledgement, but there was no lightening of her features.

“We must wait.” The hand that had stayed clamped to his arm, loosened briefly before tightening again.

Though every instinct Rodney had screamed at him to run to the DHD while they had the chance, he knew Teyla was still right. Sheppard and Ronon’s rescue relied on him and Teyla getting the word out. He’d wait as long as he had to; even if his back wailed at the awkward position.

“Yes,” he whispered.

Team was _team._

~*~

Contrary to the little the Lanteans knew about him, Ronon was not a patient man. He’d learned how to wait, breathless and silent as the grave. Too many times to count, it’d been that skill alone that had saved him. He sat motionless, as something he didn’t want to think about seeped into the leather of his pants, listened intently with every one of his strained senses. His gut wrenched painfully tight when a nothing so absolutely devoid of anything shrouded close and answered with prickles of ice along the surface of his skin. 

Ronon felt sick. Whether he chose to admit it or not, the simple truth was, his lethally honed skills had waned during his time in the city of the Ancients. He’d gotten used to doors that opened at his approach, food that was served when he was hungry, and there was always someone willing to spar when the trappings of civilization made him want to crawl out of his skin. There was even a bed with crisp sweet-smelling sheets and warm blankets waiting for him at the end of every day – even if he didn’t always use it.

Atlantis had made Ronon soft. Waiting in all-but-total darkness for an undetermined time frame _should_ have been effortless, and it would’ve been; had he not been breathlessly waiting, urgently hoping the man in the next cell would wake and tell Ronon he was unhurt.

Ronon _needed_ Sheppard to tell him he was ok, so he could breathe again.

~*~

“We are unbelievably screwed.”

“What is the matter Rodney?” Teyla hissed over her shoulder as she continued to watch the indigo-black shadows of the treeline for any movement.

Rodney looked at the regimental rows of thin clear crystals within the pedestal of the DHD and tried to ignore the hot itchy sweat that’d broken out in his armpits. It hadn’t taken him more than a cursory glance to realise they couldn’t immediately dial Atlantis and end the day laughing over a bowl of popcorn and pirated episodes of Farscape on Rodney’s laptop. Sheppard and Ronon would’ve told the story in heroic bluster of how they’d added four of the enemy’s electrical weapons to Atlantis’ arsenal. 

He looked at the glaringly-obvious space and visualized the missing component; the not-so-insignificant, Ancient-etched crystal about the size and depth of a graham cracker.

‘If he could just…’ he didn’t spare a glance for Teyla, who he felt at his back, a solid presence, not as huge as Ronon’s but completely reassuring none the less.

“Give me a minute,” Rodney grated as he pulled his handheld from its holder on his thigh and grazed his thumb over the screen to activate it.

Nothing happened. He swiped it again and turned the not-plastic rectangle over to check for damage. With a resigned sigh and a lift of his chin, he repocketed the device.

“Make that fifteen,” he muttered over his shoulder and hoped that in this case his bravado wouldn’t make a liar out of him.

Teyla had wordlessly stepped back and though it gave him less room in which to work, Rodney appreciated the manoeuvre. A silent gesture that said he was team to Teyla, just as much as Sheppard and Ronon were. Despite the absence of their two teammates and the lack of a replacement crystal, Rodney smiled; he’d create a temporary patch, one that would allow for the initial dial-out as well as the dial-in when the Jumpers came through.

He gnawed unconsciously on his bottom lip as he worked, white teeth marking plump flesh, while his fingers worked a compatible Earth wire into the Ancient version of a circuit board, and tried not to picture what was happening to Han and Chewie.

~*~

His cheek was wet. If he’d had a dime for every time he came to like this. His right pinkie seemed to be the _only_ part of him that wasn’t giving off fire-breathing pain along raw nerve endings.

He tried to open his eyes, only to realise they _were_ open. He blinked, but his surroundings remained stubbornly elusive.  
‘Was it due to lack of light? Or something more permanent?’

Whether he wanted to or not, John had to find out the answer. He couldn’t help the wavery groan of pain that slipped from between his clenched teeth, as he struggled to sit up. 

“Sheppard?”

John heard relief in the rushed exclamation and took what was maybe his first breath. He was _sure_ he would’ve registered the foul stench before now.

“Ronon, that you?”

“Who else knows you’re here?” 

The dry amusement in the other man’s deep resigned tone tugged up the corner of John’s mouth and made him flush all over. 

“How…long…was…I…out?” John asked between bum shuffles as he tried to position his back against the wall.

With his wrists shackled to each other in front of him and numb legs acting as anchors, he was exhausted and kind of seasick by the time his shoulder blades rasped the cold stone wall.

“Hour, maybe two,” Ronon finally answered, like he’d been waiting for John to get himself sorted, before speaking again.

John rolled his wrist to read his watch, but the automatic motion was halted by whatever restrained him. He could feel its weight, solid and cutting deep into the flesh of his forearm, standard issue watch pressed painfully into the bones of his wrist. John twisted his hand back the other way, but it did nothing to relieve the insistent pressure.

‘Damn! What _was_ that smell?!’ John decided he was better off in ignorance and tried not to shift about as his legs came slowly and painfully back to life; the moisture was drinking up the dry fabric of his BDUs fast enough as it was. ‘One hour, or maybe two, alone in _this_ place.’ 

“So how we doing?” He asked, turning his head to direct his voice through the thin strip of dull watery light at the base of the wall.

He knew Ronon would’ve been gathering any Intel he could, because it’s what John would’ve done; had started doing the moment he came round.

There was a long empty pause which John used to further assess his own situation. It was amazing how bright that strip of light was on his retinas; it left sharp impressions of itself on his vision that made it disorientating to look into the darkness surrounding him.

Ronon was in the light and though he could barely admit it to the quiet of his own heart; Ronon had meant light to John for a good long while now.

~*~

The rain had started eight minutes into the fifteen Rodney had asked Teyla to give him. Twenty-five minutes later, it still showed no intention of stopping, ever. He was under the black circle of his poncho, one hand holding its hemline firmly against the DHD rim above, while the other worked clumsily and slower than before, in the wobbly beam of the scopelight he held between his teeth.

The nylon slid with every movement of his head, suctioning itself to his plastered hair and forehead like a swimming cap. Water drove in icy relentless sheets through the head hole, saturated his jacket under his vest and slaked away any sign of the prickly sweat that’d plagued him earlier. It left him with random shudders that skipped along his already cramped and exhausted muscles. Rodney sighed with the depth of unappreciated martyrdom. It was a bad day when a simple bypass required more of his focus than beating Sheppard at chess.

It would’ve been so much faster and ok, easier, if his handheld had worked. Rodney gave an insignificant portion of his mind over to that puzzle and continued to wedge the wire’s raw edge into the circuitry. His jaw ached from holding the miniature flashlight’s weight at exactly the right angle and he breathed sharply out his nose in frustration, as the blue-white light – intense and bright in the confined space – wavered off point again. ‘If he could just…!’

He heard Teyla, a subtle shift of weight from one black combat-booted foot to the other. Rodney wondered where they’d found a pair of kickass military footwear small enough to fit the Athosian leader’s tiny feminine feet. He shook his head to clear it and the light danced again, but it didn’t matter now; the patch was connected and looked semi-permanent. It wasn’t his best work, but it’d have to do; besides, he’d been working under time and equipment restrictions. Rodney frowned; he prided himself on doing impossible jobs, quickly and with a certain amount of style; even if those around him were unable to appreciate the elegance of his personal design. But this, even the idiots in the botany department could’ve done better.

He was about to stand out of the awkward crouch he’d been forced to adopt while he manipulated the DHD’s innards, when Teyla hissed at him. Every muscle, every fibre, every tendon, every molecule of breath in his lungs, froze - as if turned to stone – at her touch. 

Teyla’s hands were small with dainty, elegant fingers, but he knew just how much strength they contained; had been on the receiving end of her skills every Thursday fortnight, since she’d permanently joined the team. Rodney wouldn’t ignore the warning her fingertips dug into the groove of his shoulder, even if his calves and his back screamed at him to _move!_

He slowly reached up with his free hand, pressed off the light and placed it in the line of cement between the stone pavers at his feet, before tightening his finger around his P90’s trigger and waited for Teyla’s next signal.

Rodney strained his hearing past the pounding of blood in his ears and the heavy thud-thud in his chest, but he couldn’t hear anything above the rhythmic pat of rain on already-soaked nylon. The sound reminded him of the only time he’d gone camping with his family, disastrous insanity that’d lead to them spending the night in an ancient borrowed tent that had leaked faster than any sieve.

Time stretched taut; morphing into an illusion he could no longer judge or measure. Nervous energy skated along the surface of his skin and amped up his desire to do _something,_ anything – even if that meant being in a firefight with the threat Teyla had sensed.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known they’d draw attention once they started dialling. The gate wasn’t like a cellphone or even the rotary kind; it was loud and clunky. There was no way you could secretly call your friends on another planet and ask for help in rescuing teammates from unknown badguys, without said badguys knowing you were doing it.

Rodney had just been hoping that he and Teyla could get through the event horizon and into Atlantis’ gate room before they were shot with those scary electrical weapons and dragged away like Sheppard and Ronon.

Seeing six foot five of long limbed Satedan fierceness hanging limp and conquered from the arms of their mysterious captors, had terrified and angered Rodney more than he’d realised he was capable of.

It wasn’t until Teyla tightened her grip on his shoulder again that Rodney realised he’d let his mind wander; but Teyla wasn’t just gripping him. Her fingers tapped ceaselessly in random sequences that took a moment to sink into Rodney’s food-deprived body before reaching his brain.

Morse code. She was tapping Morse code into the tip of his collarbone.

‘But, when had…?’ Rodney dismissed the irrelevant question and focused on what Teyla was telling him.

Dash, dot, dot, pause, dot, dot, dot, dot, pause, dash, dot, dot. “DHD?”

‘Ok, was she asking if he’d fixed it, or was she wanting him to dial?’ Rodney would rather be sure of Teyla’s wishes before standing up and being electrocuted.

He decided Teyla would ask if it was working before she gave him any kind of plan, so he uncurled his trigger finger, reached up across his chest and covered the back of her hand with his fingers.

A hard press for a dash, a dot and two more hard presses, pause, dot, pause, dot, dot, dot. “Yes.”

Teyla squeezed then patted his shoulder and Rodney felt ridiculously comforted by the gesture. His chest was still painfully tight and he didn’t know if his legs would work quickly enough for whatever Teyla had planned, but he was ready to back her up.

“D.I.A.L!”

Rodney wasn’t sure how Teyla had managed to add an exclamation mark to her message but he was instantly up and yanking off the poncho with stiff fingers, while the other skated and pressed each of the eight permanently-ingrained address chevrons. The pattern of gold glowed in the storm-induced darkness, like a welcoming beacon of hope, of help near-to-hand. 

Rodney leapt as if stung when Teyla opened fire, the muzzle flash and sparks from the expended casings seemed to make the air around her darker. He’d lost all sense of the passage of time. They’d stepped through the gate, straight into hostile fire and everything had gone pear shaped. 

His P90 kicked into the hollow of his shoulder with each measured arc he fired to cover Teyla’s retreat. Rodney kept a tight fist on his panic and moved himself steadily back; each lift of his foot when it hit raised stone closed the distance between here and home.

“RUN!” Teyla yelled and fired another controlled spray towards the bright blue of energy fire, before ejecting and replacing her mag as she backed up another step. 

Rodney turned; three steps and he’d be through. Three steps and he’d be safe in the heart of Atlantis. Sam would look down at him from the catwalk, a relieved mother hen smile twitching up the corner of her mouth.

Two steps; he felt Teyla beside him, together with him in this.

One step…

A scream, surely not his…

Pain, definitely his. 

Fire licked along every inch of him, superheated in the moisture-soaked air. He could see Teyla, a mesh of cobalt blue between them, her mouth open on sound he couldn’t hear. Her hand he couldn’t feel past the ice in his veins, gripped his vest but didn’t slow his fall. Rodney felt the shock of a cool caress around his wrist, registered that he’d reached the event horizon – just as his body failed him.

‘Teyla! Who would be there to protect Teyla when he was taken to wherever Sheppard and Ronon were?’

He couldn’t see her, he couldn’t see anything. His body jerked as if in its death throes and Rodney couldn’t help wondering if this was what it felt like to be a hero. He lay there, helpless, terrified for Teyla more than himself, as everything that was _him_ faded into a yawing darkness.

The one thing that stayed with Rodney through all of it was the gnawing question of why his hand was so much colder than the rest of him.

~*~

He continued to sit, in cramped stillness, long after their short conversation had dwindled away to nothing. Ronon had told his CO everything he knew about their situation; admittedly it wasn’t much, but it had still felt good to make the report.

With each word, each assessment, each of Sheppard’s responses, the suffocating silence had become less debilitating. Ronon resumed counting his heart beats, marking the passage of time in the only way he could. It wasn’t until he’d reached two hundred and ten that he realised the sleepy snuffles Sheppard had started making were perfectly in sync.

Thud-thud, breathy inhale, thud-thud, snuffly exhale.

He smiled, it was a cute sound even through the filter of cold stone, and Ronon tried to imagine what Sheppard looked like. Was his neck arched back, head resting against stone and exposing the strong column of his throat, or was he slumped forward, chin on his chest; were his lips closed or softly parted in anticipation of a kiss…

Unaware that he’d fallen asleep or of what had woken him, Ronon shifted his weight to ease the numbness in his ass. Something was different. Something was missing - something that sent icy shivers to slake their way down his spine. His shoulders ached from the unnatural weight of the shackles clamped over his forearms and kept the length of his arms stretched out in front of him. Ronon drifted back into an uneasy dose, head fallen forward on his chest, dreads blanketing his cheeks and chest. 

Twelve thousand four hundred and twenty beats later, they came. Four sets of footfalls, heavy with dominant complacency.

“Ronon,” Sheppard’s whisper confirmed a quarter beat later and Ronon grunted in affirmation. 

He pushed up with his thighs, brown linen and soft leather scraping and catching on unforgiving stone as he huffed to his feet. Even bound, Ronon was more than equal to whatever was coming for him.

The almost silent glide of advanced tech brought with it blessed sweet fresh air and a bright circle of white light that blinded him. Determined to make any kind of impact, Ronon lunged for whoever was behind the light. His reflexes were slower than he was used to, body failing him as he felt his veins catch fire; he teetered like a felled tree, knees struggling to hold his weight, vision laced with webs of blue. Through the insistent blackness Ronon heard Sheppard’s grunt and the sickening thud of pliant flesh as it met immovable stone. He felt sick and his gut twisted up at the thought, but all Ronon could do was fall in a loose-limbed sprawl; unconscious and helpless at the feet of their captors.

~*~

‘This shit _seriously_ wasn’t good for you,’ John thought through a haze of blue sparks and the hot hum of pain that enveloped him like a blanket.

Though he couldn’t tell up from down, he knew he’d been moved and that he was no longer alone.

“Ronon?” The name that in itself meant hope, left his numb lips as nothing more than a choked cry; helpless and weak and not at all embarrassing. John rolled his eyes and swallowed, his tongue fat and swollen in his too-dry mouth, “Ronon?!”

His name penetrated his mind like a knock on an Oak door; muffled and indistinct, yet still something that drew his attention. It brushed across his consciousness, unwilling to be ignored, even for more important concerns like breathing or opening his eyes. Ronon let the shadow of Sheppard’s voice pull him forth, let it bring him into the brightly lit room, a room that held anything but their freedom. 

Sheppard’s gold flecked gaze was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes on a series of languid flutters, and though his CO tried, they did not offer Ronon the unwavering certainty he’d come to depend on from his team leader. 

Sheppard was on his knees; thighs, back and biceps trembling with the strain of holding the involuntary position. His shackled forearms anchored to the square brass plate in the cobbled floor. 

“Hey, buddy.”

Ronon’s hands twitched with the need to strangle something, but they were secured above his head. Instead he growled, “you okay?” 

It took Sheppard a moment to answer and Ronon thought the other man was assessing his body before replying. The tense silence was punctured by the sliding of a door and two uniformed men took up flanking positions.

“I don’t think okay’s the word I’d use.” Sheppard’s comment was swallowed by echoing bootsteps as the guards’ uniformed superior entered the room, but Ronon understood their meaning all the same.

When Ronon saw the new man’s face he understood with the part of himself buried deep and protected by all the rest, just how bad this was. He looked into the green eyes of his teammate and utterly failed to convey reassurance. Of all the family, friends, and fellow Satedans Ronon had prayed were among the three hundred survivors of his people, the man dressed in the gold sleeves and black braid of a fourth-level Strategian, had not been one of them.

The tight-fitting tunic clung to narrow hips and the regulation breeches disappeared into over-the-knee soft leather boots that appeared new, if you didn’t look too closely and ignored the tan cracks in the brown leather – somehow dyed for the purpose. That one insignificant detail actually made Ronon’s lips tug quietly up, their corners hidden in the edges of his goatee. The men who’d captured himself and Sheppard were nothing more than exiled mercenaries, who had stumbled onto this place and decided that playing dress up was an easy way of getting what they wanted.

Ronon swallowed harshly past the dry hard lump in his throat and forced his body into a silhouette of rigidity as his first year overseer demolished the space between them. The wide-shouldered six-foot-four UC had made Ronon’s cadetship a living hell; had kept a star struck boy of fourteen in a world of pain and fear for three terms. He felt nothing; nothing but a sweat-slick fear, so cold it made his teeth ache with the strength of long-suppressed memories, and Ronon only just managed to choke off the moan of childhood terror that dug its claws into the flesh of his throat. 

“Cadet Dex!” Zil`lek’s voice was like the crack of a whip, one that hadn’t felt a lick of oil in decades. “It seems you’re still a sorry excuse for a warrior, Ancestors _know_ I tried to beat that out of you.”

Ronon felt his cheeks flush, stinging and hot, but he wasn’t sure if it was shame or fury; probably a swirling mix of both. He felt Sheppard’s eyes on him, assessing and concerned, but Ronon didn’t look at his CO. They were both restrained; anchored by cool unyielding metallic strength, but it was Sheppard who was on his knees. If Ronon could just keep Zil`lek’s attention on himself, then Sheppard would be… 

“A task proved too great for even your honourable skills, Taskmaster.” Ronon’s slimy inflection on _honourable_ pleased him with its ability to make his own skin crawl and shiver with disgust.

Zil`lek lunged furiously into Ronon’s space and even if he’d had the room to move, Ronon would not have backed down. He was finally taller and, thanks to seven years spend constantly on the move, more muscularly honed than the other man. 

“We shall see, Cadet!” 

The gusty puffs of stale tobacco filled Ronon’s senses and made his stomach lurch but he kept his gaze locked with his tormentor’s, even when his head was yanked suddenly to the right, leather-gloved fist twisted painfully in his dreads.

“Specialist!” 

The defensive force with which he’d declared his rank surprised Ronon almost as much as Zil`lek and they froze, listened to the echo of sound circuit the gold-stoned room. Ronon took great satisfaction at the disbelief in his old Taskmaster’s expression as the other man’s free hand shoved aside the ropy curtain of hair to reveal the proof inked into Ronon’s skin; three little promotional cubes, stark in their undeniable existence. 

Small though it was, Zil`lek’s snort of disgust was a victory; sweetly savoured but short-lived. Ronon trembled with a sickening helplessness, forced to watch as his tormentor pivoted to focus his attention on a prone and vulnerable Sheppard.

John had learnt three things in the five minutes since the bad guys had shown up. One, their leader was an ass. Two, he looked and moved like Kolya. Three, he and Ronon knew each other; had a past. 

The last, unfortunately, wasn’t going to get them outta here; released under a misunderstanding with embarrassed promises of an advanced ally’s help in the future. Going by the force of will Ronon was employing to keep the lines of his body still in its silver bonds, this was likely the worst situation they’d ever been in, and they’d been in a few.

John kept his eyes on Ronon, on the man who had his back in everything. On mission or on base, Ronon was always there and John, despite himself, had absorbed the comfort the big man’s presence offered; had allowed teamwork to shift into friendship and friendship into…

 _“Fuck!”_ John wheezed on a startled gasp as fire sourced in his pinkie finger ignited up each and every fibre in his right arm, melting the meat of muscle between shackle and shoulder before fizzling to nothing.

 _‘Christ!’_ He could handle pain, had dealt with _more_ than his share, but John hadn’t regrouped after the knockout hit he’d taken at the gate. A residual shudder rippled down his back, pulled on the compensating muscles of his left flank and bicep as they struggled to keep him in position. 

Ronon’s growl filled his ears, forced John to lift his head; tears blurring his vision of the writhing tower of tethered fury.

“Ahhh, so I didn’t beat _that_ out of you either.” 

Zil`lek’s gleeful chuckle blended with the fading sounds of Sheppard’s cry and Ronon felt his gut knot with acidic self-loathing. He was stronger than that; such a simple tactic should not have worked. In the first attack Ronon had revealed everything; had given Zil`lek the only weapon he needed to win Ronon’s submission.

Sheppard rolled his lolling head toward him, sight blurred by shock-induced tears and Ronon couldn’t help the hiss that slipped past his lips. Sheppard’s eyes so intensely green at that moment, were telling him, trying to soothe him and Ancestors be damned, it was working. Not for the first time Ronon wondered if Sheppard knew Ronon’s feelings for him as he stared back and fell, distracted and warm, into that trusted gaze.

~*~

When it started, when the first blow struck with sickening accuracy, Ronon thought he would throw up his spleen. The muffled thud of Zil`lek’s boot making a place for itself in a vulnerable belly, and Sheppard’s pained grunt sent prickles of chilled memory across Ronon’s own flat stomach. A second strike before Sheppard could draw air into stunned lungs, impacted in precisely the same spot, bruising deeper. Zil`lek had always been exacting in the execution of his pleasure.

Ronon’s jaw ached from the effort of holding back any and all sound. His protests, his fury, his desire to take the hits, all crowded in his throat; choked him until he could barely breathe. It was just the beginning and Ronon had learnt long ago that negotiating, pleading, begging of any kind, were all _utterly_ useless in the face of Zil`lek’s agenda.

No matter how much Ronon desired to look away, to close his ears to the increasingly pitiful moans Sheppard was giving up to his tormentor; Specialist Ronon Dex bore impotent witness to his team leader’s subjugation, and plotted the intricate details of Unit Commander Zil`lek’s impending demise.

He couldn’t breathe; his lungs had locked tight and solid in his chest with the first blow. 

_‘Christ!’_ That was the clincher, he could get around pain by focusing on his breathing, but this guy knew his stuff; and that was bad for John.

He tried to arch up, move his hips, push his ass back, _anything_ to lessen the impact; but there was nowhere to go. His forearms and ankles anchored, body held fast in a perfect pose of physical submission. John choked on his tongue as another shot of blue fire encased his thigh, spasmed the muscle and electrified bone; a rod of molten steel melting his flesh from the inside out.

Endlessly it came at him, driven and unrelenting. Physical blow or super-charged cattle prod, it didn’t matter which. John had stopped trying to anticipate; there was no point. When he braced for a kick, he got a zap to the collarbone – right where the skin was thinnest. When he clenched his teeth against crying out, two inch block-tread boots casually crunched over his fingers – knuckles ground between sadistic humour and unforgiving stone. That’d hurt more than anything yet, and John attempted to flex and curl the abused digits, shards of pain spliced deep and forced a whimper past bite-swollen lips.

First lesson in SF basic – you can drop a guy by crushing his fingers. John was already on his knees. He couldn’t lift his head anymore, so he had no clue where this fucker was. Normally that would’ve bothered John, but he was concentrating on shifting his weight to favour his injured hand.

It was Ronon’s feral growl and the ominous metallic slide up the inside of his right thigh that turned John’s blood cold.

~*~

Ronon came to only to realise that he was not only freezing, but naked as the day he was born. Neither observation, he thought, boded well for an improvement in his and Sheppard’s current situation. It took another moment and the innocuous damp beneath, for him to realise he was back in his cell. Ronon listened, threw his senses forward into darkness and ached for the reassuring echo of Sheppard’s breathing. He waited, his own breath painful and resistant in his broad chest, but there was only indifferent silence.

“Fuckfuckfuck _FUCK!!_ ” The scrape of his shackles against stone taunted him with their unrelenting strength as he threw them above his head and growled like the caveman McKay continually accused him of being.

Actually, Ronon would put up with a lot worse from the scientist, if it meant he’d be free of the damn things and back on Atlantis with Sheppard. 

Satedan honour despised deception and untruth, and though he was the only victim, Ronon could no longer go on deceiving himself. He was again ready for a companion, and his heart had chosen Sheppard; a man whose military lived by confusing rules, a man who would do anything for his people, for his men, for Ronon. Sheppard who had come after him, even when Ronon had betrayed him; had helped him fight, had saved Ronon from himself and returned him home. Sheppard who didn’t eat or sleep enough. Sheppard who’s ridiculous hair Ronon craved to tug his fingers through, who’s lips he wanted to feel opening willingly beneath his own. Sheppard, who had better not be dead, or Ronon would kill him. Sheppard.

Ronon tried to flee the images his mind was industriously supplying, images that both stoked his rage and turned his heart over in his chest. 

‘Dammit John! Where the _HELL_ are you?!’

~*~

 _‘Fuck!_ He hurt.’ He felt like an outline. Every detail, the shape of his teeth to the contour of his kidneys, lit up on a continuous livewire spark of neon blue. Not a single cell had bypassed the circuitry. _‘Jesus!_ Even his fucking _HAIR_ hurt!’

John was aware he was complaining, all things considered, if ever there was a time it was justified, now seemed good. But his duty was to escape. It nagged inside his skull, scraped and screeched like nails down a chalkboard, stabbed between his shoulders like the tip of one of Ronon’s blades; an instinct he wanted to both obey and ignore. He _should_ be finding a way to escape but there was no way he’d be able to find his dick with both hands, let alone grab Ronon and head for the gate. John listened to his excuses and felt sick, felt himself sag heavier onto the guards who dragged him. With every excruciating inhale John cried, if he was in this state, what had they done to Ronon? He couldn’t bear to think about how broken his friend; his huge, stubborn, Chewie-esk teammate would have to be before he gave them up. 

‘Dead.’ The mental image was more than too much. ‘Ronon was gone, and with him John’s one chance at something.’ 

John’s heart wrenched a pitiful sob past battered bruised lips. His jailers laughed and only increased their stride as they continued down the low-lit tunnel. John didn’t bother to stifle his agony, he was bare-ass naked, wrecked, and no one had asked him a single thing. No _who are you’s_ , _where are you from’s_ , or John’s personal favourite, _what is the gate address of your base?_ \- that one _never_ failed to make him talk. He would’ve rolled his eyes at the pathetic predictability of Pegasus interrogators, but his eyeballs seemed to be fused in their sockets; too painful to open, let alone move with any degree of contempt.

‘What did the fuckers want?’ Even as he thought it, John didn’t give a rat’s ass about the answer. He was maybe three breaths from owning his choices to whichever ascended being was on duty that day, and Ronon was dead.

The door slid open on a whisper of sound that reached him only as he was tossed, a ragbag of lanky disjointed limbs, into darkness. John tried to work his body to roll into the fall, a habit turned instinctual from years of practice, but nothing worked and he crumpled in a pathetic sprawl; his manacles clanging on stone like the strike of a blacksmith’s hammer.

‘GODDAMMITALLTOFUCKING _HELL!!’_ John railed but all that came out was a tear-choked cry. _“R-Ro-non.”_

Ronon had sprung awake – why did he keep passing out – when he heard the door of the next cell open. It was immediately followed by the sickening sound of flesh and metal colliding with immovable stone and he had to swallow back the bile that rose to burn the back of his throat.

He didn’t pray all that much anymore; had lost the habit somewhere around year four of running, but he did hope, and right now Ronon hoped with every fibre of his shivering being, that it was Sheppard he could hear weeping. Because if it wasn’t…

Then he heard it. The barest whisper of sound, so pitifully lonely, it had Ronon moving through undisclosed slime to the slit of light that separated them. 

“Sheppard?” He whispered through a dry tight throat, _“John?!”_

Ronon held his breath, desperate for any response, any movement or sound that meant John had heard him, knew that Ronon was there; but only silence answered him.

He jumped out of his skin at the touch; grazed his knuckles on stone and stretched frantically into the gap his cuffs were too wide to fit through. He felt it again, scorching heat of fever-soaked flesh, as Sheppard reached for him. “John!”

The answering brush was nothing, yet it spoke of everything. Ronon curled his pinkie around John’s, tight and strong and filled with all he wanted to say; the weak squeeze, meant to be a death grip, was a whispered promise so vital and perfect, it heralded emotion just as if Sheppard had shouted across the Gateroom.

~*~

The gradual soothing sensation that spread from his hand down through the length of his body, seeped into burned lungs, rigid joints, and even the pads of his toes; was cool, almost seductive in the way it eased the sparks from his blood and the blue fire from his vision. 

Rodney could feel the strong grip of callused fingers around his wrist and allowed himself to be dragged from the event horizon, and into the golden light of the Gateroom. 

‘Home.’ 

The floor was cold beneath him, made him shiver as his drenched uniform moulded slick and wrinkled in all the wrong places. The on-call med team transferred him from floor to gurney with skill born from too much practical experience and whisked him toward the Infirmary before Rodney had had a chance to open his mouth, let alone give his report.

‘And where was Teyla?’ Rodney thought, feeling a touch of guilt at not making her his priority; but if what he was thinking was accurate, and he couldn’t think of a time when he hadn’t been, then all they had to do was rescue Sheppard and Ronon and get them through the gate on foot. If he was right, and he’d just established he was, then the event horizon would heal them. 

After all, if he ignored the pain in his back and the way his stomach clawed hungrily at itself, then he was actually feeling pretty good; well, better than he had on the other side, at least.

‘He had to tell someone.’ Rodney stared at each of the five faces hovering over him as they manoeuvred his bed into place under sharp white lights, ‘where was Sam, or Lorne, or Teyla? He had something important to say; everything he said was important, but this was more…importanter?’

He felt great; light and fluffy and…happy. ‘Oh, God! He was dying, wasn’t he? Great! Just when he had something cool to say.’ Rodney didn’t giggle but Jennifer was smiling so maybe he had, which definitely wasn’t cool.’ He was rambling, couldn’t seem to stop; and he was sleepy, felt the weight of his eyelids as they slid closed over darting eyes. 

‘Wait! He had to tell Sam…’ He blinked owlishly, tried to keep his gaze on Jennifer as she examined him, but he was tired and really, his news wasn’t _so_ important it couldn’t wait till after a nap…

Rodney slammed back to full-alert-wakefulness without the usual slow growing awareness of his surroundings he was used to. The Infirmary’s observation ward was quiet and calm, and absent of any other patients. Teyla sat on the chair beside his bed like it was an imposing throne and not the moulded plastic replica of a thousand others, her back elegantly straight beneath dry uniform and fresh tac vest, hair tied off her face with some kind of intricate knot that defied scientific explanation. He would’ve asked her the secret but he was too busy feeling betrayed by another woman; one he’d decided had far too much say over his body, without Rodney being privy to any of the more pleasurable benefits.

“Dr Keller did not administer any medication Rodney,” Teyla spoke, each of her words laced with a fine edge of exasperated fondness as Rodney checked the backs of his hands for drip needles and his inner elbows for puncture sites. “You were merely recovering from your ordeal.”

Rodney felt his cheeks heat with embarrassment and tried to ignore the swimming guilt at sleeping while half his team was still stuck _godonlyknewwhere_ having _godonlyknewwhat_ done to them. “I’m recovered.”

He caught Teyla’s nod out the corner of his eye as he first checked he still wore pants, before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“There is time for you to change, Rodney,” Teyla smiled as Rodney eyed her with a wistful look. “Major Lorne wishes to gate out in twelve minutes.”

Rodney startled a little then, not because his body was still sparking electrical current - it wasn’t – he really did feel better than he’d expected; but if Lorne was only twelve minutes out from leaving on the rescue mission, then Rodney must’ve had nearly an hour’s sleep. Rodney ducked his head as the embarrassing blush returned full force. 

“There is no shame in taking rest Rodney,” Teyla quieted him with a hand on his shoulder, “you will be needed.”

Teyla’s hand squeezed into the curve of tense muscle before releasing; the action reminded him of what was still to come and powered him towards his quarters. ‘If he hurried, he’d have time to pick up a sandwich too.’

~*~

Rodney sat behind Lorne - which was weird in its self because Rodney always rode shotgun with Sheppard, well not always, but enough to make it his seat - as Jumper 2 flew cloaked over unremarkable landscape. Instead he was hunched over his laptop’s miniscule screen instead of reading the HUD’s readout – he really liked using the HUD, ‘size _absolutely_ mattered.’

“I’ve got it!” Rodney crowed and felt every pair of eyes in the packed Jumper shift focus to him, “energy reading too large to be anything other than a facility of some kind.”

Lorne brought up the HUD with a practised motion and the signal registered as a pulsing red dot, layered transparently over the yellow footprint of not one building, but a mass of buildings sprawled out in an intricate snowflake. Silence fell as both the realisation of their discovery, and the enormity of their task sank into the minds of everyone on board. 

In the four years the expedition had called Atlantis home, they still hadn’t discovered all its secrets. Rodney busied himself by overlaying Atlantis’ blueprint over the yellow and scanning for discrepancies; there were none and they all stared at the now completely green silhouette.

“Right,” Lorne muttered as he banked and radioed Jumper 8. “Are we receiving their locators?”

With a tap of a key, two white dots, almost on top of each other blinked into existence.

“Huh,” Rodney’s relief rushed out of him, leaving him giddy. Sheppard and Ronon were being held in a replica of Atlantis and he was tracking their signals; as far as rescue missions went, this’d be a cakewalk. Except of course, for the teensy detail that Sheppard and Ronon were being held in an area of the city Rodney hadn’t known existed; and as he watched, one of the white dots had separated from the other and was slowly moving down a route that was just as much a mystery as the first location.

“Damn!” Lorne muttered in annoyance as he read the HUD’s real-time updates and tapped his radio. 

Captain Cole’s confirmation scratched through the intercom as Lorne touched smoothly down and locked out the flight controls, before he pushed out of his chair and stalked into the rear cabin. Sheppard’s XO took the last P90 from a yellow case just inside the bulkhead, and announced brusquely as he clipped the weapon to his vest, “McKay, you’re with me.”

They moved down familiar-looking corridors and through spacious atriums with more stealth than Rodney thought possible for him, Teyla and eighteen burly Marines. He kept to Lorne’s shoulder, followed the other man like he would’ve done Sheppard, and whispered whenever his handheld showed the moving dot had changed course. Rodney couldn’t help wondering who the dot they were tracking was.

“McKay!” 

Rodney looked up at Lorne’s whispered annoyance to see an intricately panelled wall where, according to the screen in his palm, there should’ve been open hallway. He stepped around the point guard and started scanning the wall. The quiet bleeping sounded disturbingly loud in the otherwise tension-filled quiet and Rodney felt everyone’s eyes as they drilled into the back of his skull.

On the fourth pass and just when Rodney was starting to run disaster scenarios in his head, his handheld bleeped enthusiastically. He pressed the concealed control panel with his palm, was surfed forward into the revealed hallway on the wave of eager Marines behind him, and straight into a firefight - P90s versus whatever those other things were called.

Rodney forced down the terror that sprung up in his throat at the blue crackling laughter that echoed around him, made the hair on his arms and nape stand on end. Bursts of P90 fire answered in angry yellow barks that actually made him feel better; he and Teyla had backup and they were getting Sheppard and Ronon back. He fired, felt the reassuring kick in his shoulder and moved forward with Lorne’s measured advance.

It was loud, all consuming, every sound swallowed as his ears strained to do their job and received nothing but static. He fired another burst into the few stragglers, stepped over the Swiss-cheesed corpses only to be swept up in the ground eating pace the barrier of black-clad soldiers around him set. Their element of surprise shattered, their presence no doubt telegraphed to others, no need to whisper, every need to find their people and get out!

“Left!” Rodney directed from three men back and saw Lorne pause then spring around the corner; heard him fire and tightened his own finger on the trigger in readiness.

He tried not to flinch with every finger of electric cobalt that arced out in a shower of sparks by his head, but it was impossible. Rodney was terrified; yet his hands moved with hard-practiced calm, changed out the empty clip for the fresh one tucked in his vest, fired with Sheppard-honed accuracy, and thought of nothing except rescuing Sheppard and Ronon, rescuing their people, rescuing his team.

The next two turns brought them no opposition and Rodney huffed out a relieved breath; they’d caught up with the moving dot. It was stationary now, located on the other side of the smooth metal door in front of them; a door that just barely muffled the shocked grunts and deep outraged growls that could only be Ronon.

Rodney tried to block them out, tried to focus on hotwiring the familiar circuits with shaky fingers, tried not to think about the level of pain needed to draw those sounds from someone with Ronon’s resistance threshold.

He fumbled the last crystal on Ronon’s whimper, but the door still slid open on a silent whoosh. Rodney took one step into the room, P90 at his shoulder, and froze. In the space between one blink and the next, two men were bleeding crimson puddles, Captain Cole and another Marine held a third against a wall, and Teyla was at Ronon’s side.

Ronon, filthy and naked with his arms stretched taut above his head, biceps and forearms bulging with strain, wrists shackled by metallic cuffs whose three red lights glowed ominously in the watery light.

“McKay!” Lorne yelled but Rodney knew it was to snap him back, not because he was pissed – well not at him anyway.

The sharp command did its job and Rodney found himself focused on the problem he alone could fix and not the horror-film bloody bootprints that patterned the otherwise clean floor. He could hear Teyla’s calm tones as she sought to reassure Ronon he was safe and Rodney scoffed silently. They may have found Ronon but they weren’t exactly back on Atlantis and they still hadn’t found Sheppard. Rodney thought they should’ve split up, should’ve searched for both men at the same time and met back at the jumpers; but he grudgingly supposed Lorne was right. Brilliant as he was, even Rodney couldn’t be in two places at once, and it was obvious no one else could figure out how to turn off those cuffs. Plus, there was the whole divide and conquer cliché that added weight to Lorne’s logic.

He’d felt ridiculous by the time he’d finished waving his handheld in wide sweeps over three of the walls, without even the slightest blip in the readings, when the little device lit up enthusiastically over the central diamond design on the fourth wall. Rodney touched his palm to the cool surface and felt it retreat into its sconce.

A metallic clunk and Ronon’s groan pulled Rodney round on his heel, terrified he’d caused more harm, only to have relief flood him when he saw the tall man hunched in on himself, arms too heavy and weak to do anything but hang at his sides.

Ronon spared McKay a nod that the physicist was too slow to return, before looking at Lorne, “Sheppard?”

“Alive,” the shorter man answered. “Found you first.”

Ronon nodded, though Rodney could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

“Zil`lek has him,” Ronon fisted the silver survival blanket Teyla had pulled from her pack and held out to him, impatiently tied it around his waist with a knot at his hip. “We need to move.”

Lorne nodded once, sharp and knowing, before he pulled a 9mm from inside his vest and offered it to Ronon.

Ronon dressed in nothing but an aluminium skirt, long dreads and holding a puny-looking gun in his huge hands should’ve been ridiculously laughable, but the fury in his deep brown eyes froze Rodney’s blood in his veins. He almost felt sorry for whoever this _Zileet_ person was. Almost.

They were on the move; Lorne to his right, three paces ahead, McKay and Teyla behind him with the Marines covering their backs. Ronon was sore and the crisp rustle of his modesty wrap distracted his hearing, but he kept moving. His physically-tenuous connection with a steadily-fading Sheppard had been broken when Zil`lek’s men dragged Ronon from his cell. The whimper of protest he’d heard through the wall, John’s whisper of loss, still lingered loud in the confusion of Ronon’s mind as he retraced the three hundred ninety two paces, four turns and one flight of twenty seven steel stairs back to where he’d been forced to leave the man he loved. 

~*~

He was gone. Ronon was gone. John still felt the outlined pressure on his pinkie, felt the heat so inherently Ronon, even as it began to physically cool. He wanted to tuck his finger close, keep the warmth close, keep Ronon close; but he couldn’t move. His body had betrayed him; weak and insubordinate in the face of John’s plea, his need to keep that single most important touch protected. Safe.

‘Oh, _who,_ was he kidding?’ He hadn’t kept anybody safe in a long time, if ever; certainly not since coming here. Directly or indirectly, more people had died on his watch, had died due to his inability to keep them safe. 

Ronon wasn’t safe; far from it. John had lost him more times than he cared to remember. His exhausted mind supplied memories John would’ve preferred to forget, except they were Ronon and even painful memories of Chewie were more important than anything that’d come before. 

Ronon. Ronon was gone. John still heard his own name echoing back down the tunnel in the pained husky growl Ronon’s voice had become.

 _“John!”_ He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed, longed for, someone to call him by his name; to have them whisper _John_ in darkened silence where only the two of them existed, where the world was dismissed like an errant subordinate because they willed it.

John was wracked with sudden laughter, excruciating as it shook into him, cramped low in his abused gut and stole out his throat in razor-edged barks. It’d only taken capture and torture, interrogation and isolation, the threat of death, and pain so deep as to crumple his own defences; but John had got what he’d wanted – time alone in the dark with Ronon. Just the two of them, no barriers, nothing to hold them back. Well, there’d been no mental barriers at least; the fucking cuffs and solid-ass stone wall had been – still were – undeniable barriers that John wasn’t currently in a state to breach. He sighed too deep and felt the stab of taunting reminder as it shot down his spine, reflexed his leg to kick and yank on his overfull bladder.

 _‘Fuck!’_ He’d wanted to scream the curse, but it’d only been a whisper, not even that. It was pathetic; but he really was _too_ old for this shit, could think of a thousand better, more pleasant, ways to go out.

With the last vestige of fading thought John heard the whispering slide of his own cell door opening and actually cried.

The light was bright, thoroughly intrusive and completely addled what was left of John’s thought processes. The same guy stood over him, a pleasure-soaked grin slashing his face as the cattle prod swung with evil promise from his relaxed grip.

“I gave your boy to my men. They deserve some fun. Parched for amusement as they are.”

The silence dragged out, tiptoed along each of his cracked and broken ribs, and ticked in the blossoming black and purple that painted his jaw, but John refused to take the bait; ignored both scenario and implication.

“But you…” John held himself to the pain-edged sprawl, refused to give in to the urge to curl into a ball, suffered through the lazy exploratory examination of hungry grey eyes, “…you make such beautiful noises for me.”

 _‘FUCK!’_

John bit through his lip, thirstily gulped the trickle of his own blood as it soothed the dryness; but he couldn’t stop his back arching away, away from the pain. 

His nipple was on fire! Flames licked over the singed nub that stood out taut and pink and insulted from his sweat-soaked chest.

He couldn’t catch a breath, lungs tight and hot and _fuck_ he needed air!

“Come on Sweetheart, you can do it, make those pretty, pretty noises for me.” John rolled his eyes and was rewarded with a hit to his other nipple. 

‘Holyfuckingshit!’ God help him, he cried out; gave the fucker exactly what he wanted, but refused to open his eyes. 

“Mmmmm…so pretty, but you can do better than that.”

John sobbed, tried to curl up against the boot under his ribs, but the weight of his shackles anchored his wrists to the floor above his head as if they were an anvil, and his legs wouldn’t obey his weak-assed commands.

“Cadet Dex gave me what I wanted. He was _so_ good at pleasing his betters.”

He laughed, he actually laughed – the fucker! John knew it was stupid, would earn him another hit but he didn’t care. If it was all he could do for Ronon now, then he’d do it, no question.

“SPECIALIST!” He’d shouted in his head but it came out as a choked whisper.

There was no wordy taunt, no sleazy pet name, no warning before his head flung back, clunked sickeningly against stone and screamed at him with indignation. It didn’t matter. Ronon was worth it. Ronon was worth everything.

John pulled into himself then, the hits too continuous to count or avoid, until somewhere near the edge they stopped – just like that. Warm dark coaxed him into its arms, but not before John blinked on the vision of Ronon; long arms and even longer legs, punches and kicks and ropey dreads flying in a blur of silver satin.

‘One too many hits, obviously,’ he scoffed past the dreamy amused smile on his split and swollen lips, and let the darkness win.

~*~

McKay cracked the door code a second before Ronon would’ve got Lorne to C4 it to dust. 

All Ronon’s rage, his helpless rage, both from memory and the sight before him, forced its way on a spitted growl through clenched teeth as he pounced; ambushed his prey from above and drove his fist through the side of his old taskmaster’s face. Ronon felt satisfaction swell his chest as the slick crunch of mangled bone scraped his knuckles, he twisted, found momentum and power in reserve, drove his knee into vulnerable kidneys. Zil`lek’s scream was no more than a whimper in the stunned silence of the crowded cell; his puny struggles restrained by sculpted muscle that circled his neck. Ronon held his quarry with mocking ease as the man’s knees sagged, put self-inflicted pressure on his own windpipe and increased the pleasant choking sound he’d begun to make.

Ronon didn’t have time. The Lanteans would try to stop him, would argue on the side of intelligence gathering. Teyla would understand – she was from Pegasus, knew about his honour and what it truly meant – but she would still argue this, would see the fallout further ahead than any of the men ever could. McKay was with him, all the way, Ronon knew by the way his teammate’s eyes darted between Sheppard’s prone form and Zil`lek’s increasingly still body; saw his pupils darken and his usually unsilenceable mouth flatten into a tight line; unhappy but in agreement with Ronon’s decision.

He did not need their permission, did not care either way; just yanked the weapon from Zil`lek’s loosened grip as he shoved John’s tormentor over onto his back. The thunk of skull contacting stone was a lot more satisfying when it wasn’t John’s. Ronon’s smile was a grotesque sneer of perfect white teeth, his cheeks adorned with the crimson splatter of victory near to hand. Zil`lek cowered, raised shaky hands in a pathetic gesture of surrender that Ronon ignored, kicked hard into soft belly. Without boots it didn’t have the effect he was going for but the squeal that filled the room still held a pleasing edge all the same. He kicked again, and again, and again; yanked on short hair so his fist had a better target and felt slick warmth on his forearm, heard crunching and wet gurgles, and uncurled long fingers with slow deliberateness, only to tighten again around cool metal. 

He raised his arm, bicep taut and tendons corded beneath filth and blood-smeared golden skin; plunged then skewered.  
Zil`lek’s scream, his wail of agony as his hands jerked and clutched between his splayed and spasming thighs, was cut to fish-gulping silence by the flip of a cobalt switch. 

Ronon watched; frozen with the same sick fascination Earthers reserved for car crashes, while behind him he heard the mixed gasps of those he trusted to have his back. As he watched the body in front of him curl and sizzle, flail and wet itself; a small part of Ronon was surprised Lorne had allowed him this. Too quick by any measure, it wasn’t all that his taskmaster was owed, but it was fair trade for John Sheppard and that was the only debt Ronon saw fit to claim, as he bore witness to Zil`lek’s blue-laced death throes.

It was the plaintive moan uttered by his CO and friend that pulled Ronon from his thoughts and reminded him of their need to be done and gone from this place; his focus immediately back with those who mattered and how they would help get John home.

“He is cold,” Teyla explained simply to McKay, who had stopped her from wrapping a second survival blanket around Sheppard’s battered torso.

“They only retain the heat you have and he has none. You’d be making a popsicle.”

Teyla’s hands fell limp between her knees, the whisper of silver with its power hidden within its flimsiness, floated to the filth-smeared floor at her feet.

“I’ve got him,” Ronon’s assurance had the opposite effect on his teammates, who looked startled and not a little wary as they backed out of his way; so he tried again, the innocent sweep of dark lashes on pale cheeks and the swollen plumpness of damaged lips, softened his tone to a gentle purr. “I’ve got him.”

~*~

John was as cold as the stone he’d been lying against, had absorbed its unhealthy chill. Ronon tugged the older man closer into his side; kept a tight hold over narrow hip and the wounded wrist that draped off Ronon’s shoulder, and willed John to absorb the life-saving heat Ronon was offering.

They moved, faster than Ronon would admit to being capable of maintaining much longer. He was out of the habit; a warm bed, regular meals, friendship and Atlantis’ existence had all combined to make him – if not soft – then complacent, less honed to the hardships of life on the run. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Lorne with McKay behind him shouting out the turns, ran them straight into an ambush and Ronon, having never picked up the forgotten 9mm, pushed a still mostly-unconscious John up against the red wall; tucked a black spikey-haired head into the crook of his neck and tried to ignore the soft warm breath on his skin as he shielded the other man with his body. Never in all his life, had Ronon felt more useless or more vulnerable than he did at that moment.

Amid the chemical-green glow of golden P90 fire and cobalt lightning he had nothing to give, nothing but the waning strength of his own body. Ronon ducked his head in close, his hair curtaining their faces and muffling the sound of combat to dull pops, easily ignored as he whispered against a pointy-tipped ear. “I’ve got you.”

Ronon felt fingers bite with surprising strength into the curve of his hip, nails leaving crescents in his skin, and felt rather than heard the echo of his name answered into his chest. He shuddered with a feeling he held no name for, had no time to find one as someone yanked his arm and dragged him and John forward; felt the rough scrape of lacing and velcro against his naked flank, until Ronon got his feet under him again, could again shoulder John’s weight, could get them both home.

Fresh sweet air licked at his sweaty temples, tickled his armpits, teased his nipples and filled his eager lungs. It had Ronon running forward, John clutched to his side, within the circle of the team; the waiting jumper opening its hatch to McKay’s remote as the rear guard covered their retreat in an arc of flesh-ripping finality.

Sound fell in on itself, consumed its own echo until Ronon could hear nothing of the procedural chaos that surrounded him. He tolerated the scratchy warmth of the wool blanket that shrouded him to the knee, but brushed away Teyla’s questioning palm with a gentle squeeze. Every ounce of his focus was directed to the scene played out in the crowded cabin’s foot bay.

Lorne’s medic adjusted the straps of the clear plastic mask that covered John’s nose and mouth, and turned the valve on the red tank of oxygen while Teyla tucked a blanket – twin to Ronon’s – along John’s sides. They’d laid him on the stretcher to make moving him to Keller easier; Sheppard would have protested, had he been conscious.

The thought made Ronon smile, just the slightest tug at the corner, hidden by his goatee, but there all the same. He felt a nudge, tentative but insistent, and turned to see McKay perched on the very edge of the beige bench. His eyes were a mixture of exhausted relief, wariness and something Ronon couldn’t name; respect, perhaps.

He was holding out a plastic triangle, one side black, the other transparent and it was a moment before Ronon realised it was a sandwich packet from Atlantis’ mess hall.

“It’s ham salad, but…” the man ducked his head as he stumbled on, “…I thought, given…everything…”

Ronon nodded and couldn’t help the way his gaze drifted back to John, as he wormed a hand out from under his blanket. “Yeah…everything.”

The silence grew heavy but not uncomfortable as McKay seemed content to let Ronon enjoy the moist softness of Earth bread, ham and the sharp welcome tang of the Kwaiana fruit Teyla had bartered for on her last trading mission to Selphos.

“I couldn’t’ve…you just…” Ronon wasn’t sure McKay was aware he’d spoken aloud so he took another bite, held back a moan at the pleasure of chewing, and waited. With this particular Earther there were always more words. “I knew you could…but never really… _knew_ …you know?”

McKay was looking at him now, looking like he was really seeing him. Ronon could only remember one other time when the scientist had done that, had asked about his scars, whether they were something he wore in honour before he’d gone ahead and healed them; left soft new skin in their place. Ronon felt the same now as he had then; surprised and oddly vindicated, though he was still to puzzle out why McKay’s opinion mattered to him at all.

“I couldn’t have done…th…what you did.”

Ronon swallowed his surprise down with the last mouthful of the most delicious sandwich he’d ever eaten and licked the crumbs from his lips – to stall for time – then answered with certainty clenched deep in his gut. “Yes, you could.”

McKay froze, not sure he’d heard right, but Ronon wasn’t going to repeat it. “You’d rewire the door control so it never opened again. He would have died slower. The outcome is the same.” 

He had said them flat and honest with no inflection, and Ronon watched, waited patiently for understanding to dawn. 

And there it was, a puffing out of chest, a straightening of shoulders and an evil gleam in intelligent eyes. “Now that,” McKay chuckled, “I could do.”

Ronon snorted his agreement, dreads falling forward to hide his amusement, even as a curl of regret grew behind his ribs. There had been a certain poetic justice to skewering Zil`lek’s balls with the very weapon he’d used on him and John, but Ronon had to admit; McKay’s way definitely had its merits.

~*~

If anyone had touched him, he would have shattered like crystal; powder with a few fractured shards that sliced deep when handled. It was stupid. McKay’s theory had proved correct, and after Ronon had _volunteered_ by walking through the active gate to New Athos before Colonel Carter had actually given her ok, Lorne and his medic, Teyla and McKay, had brought John through on his stretcher.

Sheppard – Ronon called John _Sheppard_ when he recalled the situation, because as they returned back through the redialled wormhole, it was most definitely _Sheppard_ who had demanded, albeit tiredly, he was capable of walking under his own power.

By the grace of his mysterious Satedan-ness Keller kept him but one night in the Infirmary’s too-short bed before she declared him fit for _light duties_ and shooed him from her domain with a wistful look that said, only too clearly, how much she would have liked him under her microscope.

Ronon was back in the Infirmary not more than an hour later; showered, fed, dressed and armed with the reserve Travellers’ blaster he’d traded two blades and three of the _Apricot Jubilee_ fruit bars from McKay’s pack to obtain. Keller had caught her eye roll as she rounded the privacy curtain to find him sprawled uncomfortably in the visitors’ chair beside John’s bed, had given him a small smile instead, and continued her checks as if Ronon was simply part of the décor.

Through the five days it took for John to keep his eyes open for longer than two minutes together and be able to awkwardly shift his battered body into a sitting position, Ronon had begun to think he was too. He remained at John’s bedside, vigilant and unwavering in his presence, in his own desire to be close. It was the only place Ronon could think to be and John, after a badly-acted, awkwardly-expressed suggestion that Ronon had better things to do than play nursemaid; had rewarded Ronon’s _Earthers are idiots_ stare with flushed cheeks and a shy unguarded smile, before asking if he’d seen Farscape yet.

And so it had been, every day for two weeks, until Keller sent Ronon to his own bed each night at twenty two hundred. Shoulders bumping as they watched the episodic adventures of Earth astronaut John Crichton on the small screen of John’s laptop, not-so-shy smiles, endless games of Halo and poker, and the soft graze of bandaged fingers across the back of Ronon’s hand when no one was around.

Ronon felt his heart trip an extra beat the day Keller’s nurse removed the bandages and John had twined their pinkies when her back was turned; just for a moment, a strong tight squeeze so fleeting and over before Ronon could react, that he had wondered if he’d dreamed it. The heat in John’s cheeks when Ronon had looked up from the blanket where his own hand still lay, told him he had not. Ronon hadn’t been able to stop grinning and John’s answering bark of unchecked laughter was enough of a sign for Keller to release Atlantis’ military commander back to his own quarters.

Ronon was inwardly – okay, outwardly – ecstatic, despite the scary glare of warning Keller gave him as he shadowed John’s shuffling progress out the door. She may have been half his size, able to be snapped like a green twig with no effort at all, but when the need was on her, Jennifer Keller could make even Ronon Dex cower in his boots.

~*~

“Do you ever think about what comes…after?”

John’s voice, still a little rough around the edges, called to Ronon from the blanket swathed lump that occupied the recently upgraded double bed, to where he stood looking past his reflection in the glass and out into the deep purple of a New Lantean winter night.

They had continued as they had begun in the Infirmary; Ronon spending every waking minute with John, keeping the other man to Keller’s regime while keeping John from losing his mind. It was inevitable that all the sleeping minutes would eventually be spent here too. John in his _Sheppard_ voice had offered a token protest the first night Ronon had settled comfortably into the white leather arm chair with an air of immovable determination; but since neither of them wanted the separation, all _Sheppard’s_ half-hearted arguments had died on John’s lips.

“After what?” Ronon’s voice rumbled deep and quiet between window and bed, was swallowed whole in the pause before John could formulate his answer.

“This, after the…job.” John felt heat rise in his cheeks, hoped Ronon couldn’t see it in the blue half-shadows of the second moonrise.

“Once,” Ronon spat the word as if it was set with rot and felt John’s flinch as if Ronon had struck him.

Tension was eager to stretch the following silence taut, so taut it pulled forth a sigh so deep, Ronon felt himself fold inwards. He leaned his brow to the cool of the glass and tried to answer John’s _real_ question. The one hidden beneath the awkward stumble of words, the one that held the possibility of a future beyond…this.

“Wraith do not allow for dreams of the future. Only of death. Of servitude.” 

Ronon had meant the pause at the end to be final, but the rustle of bedding told of John moving, settling more comfortably.

“What _did_ you dream of Ronon?”

A simple question with no simple answer, at least not back on Sateda, but now, over the past few years, the answer had become stupidly simple. How was it, that a measurement of time, so insignificant in the Ancestors’ great plan, could turn the universe for one man – or perhaps two?

Ronon didn’t know that answer, but he knew the one that mattered; recognised this as the pivotal moment in which he either received his wish or chose to let it go - never to have the chance presented again.

“Nothing…” he whispered, “…before you.”

Nothing was what enveloped Ronon then, a silence and stillness devoid of breath; a vacuum that sucked him into the stretched emptiness of time itself. He had gambled and lost.

John felt the spinning freefall as it swooped up all that he was and dived into nothingness. He had dared to hope since their return, during his recovery. Had taken how Ronon stayed, even when he could’ve left John to his confinement and chalked up the insignificantly-huge contact between them, as nothing more than a way to survive until Atlantis came for them.

When John was released, Ronon could’ve chosen that moment to return to his duties, leave John in his quarters; another set of walls meant to contain, attractive not-metal and glass – impeccably clean and bright yes - but no less claustrophobic than the slime-slick stone of his cell.

Ronon had stayed, stayed beyond the boundaries of expectation and well into the realm of hope.

John fought a moment against tangled blanket and still-weak legs till his bare feet contacted cool floor and pushed to stand. He sensed Ronon shutting down, could see the hard sharp line of rejection in powerful shoulders and arms. John’s fingers itched with the need to touch, to sooth, to reassure.

“Thank _God!”_ John whispered fervently as he crossed the distance between them, turned the taller man from the window and into arms he hoped were up to the challenge he was asking of them. “C’mere.”

Ronon was warm beneath the cool touch the room had settled on his skin. His hair fell around them shielding them from what, John didn’t know, but he liked the feeling of just him and Ronon, alone, together.

He tilted his chin, brought them even closer as heat rushed to make him dizzy, to make him bold. Ronon’s breath was hot; flavoured the space between them with everything John craved, needed.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, and felt those fucking _amazing_ arms tighten, felt himself pulled into heat and hardness, felt the scratch of beard and the softness of lush full lips, and tasted Ronon’s answering moan as he dipped his own tongue into open pliant heat.

‘God! Why hadn’t they done this before…like from the day they met?! He’d cheated them, had deprived them of _this,_ but he was _damn_ well going to make up for it now.’

He tugged experimentally; fingers twisted tight in soft worn linen as he shifted his weight to his back foot and waited for Ronon to take the hint.

John was off his _feet!_ His mouth was still consuming, nipping and licking, sucking at every part of Ronon’s mouth; but he was being _carried!_ – with embarrassing ease – back towards the bed.

They fell, Ronon’s huge hands splayed and cradling at nape and hip as the mattress caught and bounced their tangled limbs, drove a startled _oomph_ from them both.

“Want to taste you, _all_ of you.”

John’s eyes rolled back and his toes curled, _seriously_ curled, Ronon was going to eat him alive, and there was nothing, nothing John wanted more.

He clutched handfuls of scratchy dreads, tugged to bring the bigger man down, fully nestled snug from chest to thigh, and whispered into the moist hot air between them. “Please.”

Ronon growled and dived on John’s mouth, fed on that full lower lip with little nips and bites, soothed with swipes of his tongue before slipping the tip into the waiting slick cavern on his CO’s mouth. John tasted of the same hungry need and want that was curling in Ronon’s own belly; that rapidly thickened his dick. He ground his hips only to feel John’s answer, a circle up and chase of delicious friction. Ronon felt John’s length through the thin fabric of black sweatpants, through the soft worn leather of his own leggings, and in that second wanted to just rip _all_ their clothing right off.

‘Man, Ronon _knew_ how to kiss!’ John was dizzy, fucking _dizzy,_ and grinding with rapidly disappearing control from a single lip lock. 

He would’ve been embarrassed, if Ronon’s own ragged breath against John’s damp neck and the fingers scrabbling at his waistband hadn’t told him the other man was just as far gone; just as eager to touch smooth hot skin. He lifted up, aided in the cause, was rewarded by indrawn breath and long callused fingers curving over his hips; digging into the meat of his ass. John couldn’t hold back a moan of frustration as he tried to make his arms long enough to push Ronon’s leathers down past his thighs. He wanted his hands on those sweet golden globes, wanted to squeeze, lift and spread, wanted to feel Ronon’s cock slide against his own.

It was awkward and rushed and decidedly unsexy for a moment, until their legs were free of restrictive fabric, till John could wrap his thighs over smooth sweat-slick hips and slide his aching dick alongside Ronon’s. It was good, better than he’d dreamed; bathed in heat, taut balls teased by the rasp of course hair, head and shaft slick with precome as he pulled Ronon in, tight and close and so fucking sweet he couldn’t help the thrust of welcome as Ronon ground him down into the softness of rumpled bedding.

“C’mere.” Ronon could no more resist those lips, freshly licked in invitation by John’s playful tongue, than he could deny his heritage, so he dipped his head and allowed John to kiss him, to suckle his lips and taste his tongue.

Hands not as large as his own but enough to cradle his skull, tangled in his dreads, small shards of pain tugged in the roots, amped up his pleasure and pulled a groan from his soul that John was only too eager to take from him.

‘The Ancestors, that was hot!’ Ronon took control then; shoved his tongue deep, licked over teeth and the walls of John’s mouth, teased the tip of the other man’s tongue.

John was scrabbling at the hem of Ronon’s shirt, rucked it into his armpits with his need to explore. He’d seen Ronon shirtless before, many times, had allowed the barest of grazing looks before turning away; but now he had permission, could look his fill, could drink in the sight of all that deliciously golden skin, could trace every contour and shadow of strained taut abs, feel every shudder of pleasure Ronon made at John’s touch. Ronon broke their kiss, necessary to finish the getting-naked, but John moaned at the loss all the same. Brown eyes so deep and dark John wanted to fall in and never leave stared into his own; echoed the sentiment and soothed the tendrils of panic that’d suddenly clawed at John’s chest.

“Off.” The order, sharp and brusque with want, had John moving for the hem of his black tee, clumsy with haste to obey, the need for skin on skin contact driving him forward.

Ronon’s hands engulfed his in stillness, held them on pause till he looked up and met the reassuring kiss that waited for him. It was short and soft and soothing and turned John’s knees to jello. “Slow, okay?”

John blushed. Ronon wanted to watch and John had wanted his shirt off, to move onto the good stuff, his need and years of want driving him on. Ronon was fucking gorgeous; it made sense to enjoy the unveiling. John was glad Ronon still had his big brain working enough to give them this.

Pants had been thrust aside without thought in the desire to be naked, but shirts seemed more intimate. They both had scars, imperfections that gave away stories they weren’t ready to speak of. John knew he was scrawny by comparison, pale with a good helping of hair, but if Ronon wanted to see what he was getting; then John would show him, would lay himself bare. It was all he had to offer and he hoped Ronon would be okay with it, with John.

Ronon had pulled back from John; given them both the room to twist and wriggle out of their shirts, but his hands had stopped, paused in the act of pulling his tunic up over toned chest, to watch John. His companion was fucking breath-taking. Long lean lines of muscle and sinew under creamy pale skin patterned with hair that Ronon couldn’t wait to feel rasping against his skin. He wanted to touch, lick and smell; he wanted to be pressed everywhere against John, to feel the man press back with the same desire that fuelled Ronon. It made him light-headed, swam his thoughts until all he was doing was staring, drinking in the sight of his naked lover; black hair wild with the paths of Ronon’s fingers and tousled from the neck of John’s tee, gold-flecked green eyes turned black with aroused hunger – for him.

“Hey?” John’s voice was hesitant, ready to flee if Ronon didn’t want this, his hands uncertain of their welcome, brushed over Ronon’s forearm only to jerk away again at Ronon’s shudder. 

The withdrawal brought Ronon back to himself, to the rapidly crumbling moment he’d longed for, had fantasised about and he grabbed John’s wrist, held it in place and traced knuckle and bone; memorising shape and feel as he reassured with a nod.

“I’m gonna need actual words here, buddy.” John whispered, not pulling his hand away just letting Ronon continue his slow examination.

“I’m good.”

John’s smile was there, cautious at the corners as he brought his other hand to rest tentatively where Ronon’s tunic was bunched under his arms, covering his nipples but exposing defined abs and lean flanks. “Can I see _all_ of you?”

Fingertips rasped over one nub, circled in question before pushing coffee-coloured linen higher, letting cool air pull taut flesh tighter as if it were on a leash. Ronon shuddered with the pleasure, a trail of fiery need straight to his dick that had him forgetting _slow._ He pushed back onto his knees, the movement dropping John’s thighs from his hips to sprawl either side of him on the bed; laying his CO open for his gaze, open for him. Ronon gasped at the beauty of the other man as he rested on his heels, arched and twisted his torso and felt warm breath, rasp of tongue and a hint of teeth at his nipple before his hair was even free of the collar. John’s arms were around him, circling him, course hair rasping against his chest as John suckled hungrily; little groans caught in his throat. Ronon sealed the gap between them, splayed a hand on John’s back, tangled and tugged the other through overlong black spikes, baby-soft and playful around his fingers, black and blue and chocolate and silver against the caramel of his own skin. He pulled then, pulled John’s face up with a juicy pop that only increased the hardness between his legs and pulled John to his knees; encircled him in one strong arm and brushed his thumb over a high cheekbone.

John let Ronon look. He’d never just been looked at before; never been seen, never allowed the kind of scrutiny he was permitting Ronon to take. There’d been no one he’d wanted to know that much about himself; until Ronon. He ran his own fingers in a slow slide down the humps and dips of Ronon’s spine, sweat easing the glide; felt every one of his friend’s indrawn breaths as he curved his palms to ribs, squeezed before sliding to grip hips, thumbs soothing the hollows they found there.

“Long time?” John asked on a whisper as he stared openly back into deep-brown wonder while he pictured how they’d fit together. He’d never had a lover so much bigger than him.

“Want you.” Ronon hissed his pleasure through clenched teeth when John’s hand cradled him, fingers curling to fist him, a squeeze and insistent pull that tugged his hips into following the movement. “Want this.”

John surged up at him, taking his mouth, feasting on him as their bodies collided, cocks crushed between them, friction and pressure driving them closer as Ronon lifted John into his lap; palms full of the scrumptious ass he’d wanted since the day they’d met.

John felt fingertips dip between his already parted cheeks but couldn’t decide if he wanted to wiggle back in encouragement or thrust forward against the monster of a cock that was pressing against his own more modest…the fingers found him, found the centre of him and his body chose for him; circled back, following Ronon’s fingers as they circled and pressed at his rim. 

“Fuck, yes!” John wanted Ronon inside him more than he wanted his next breath.

John’s brain was off line, how could it not be when Ronon’s fingertips were pushing past his lips, urging John to suck them wet in preparation. He couldn’t think past the phantom feeling of those long thick fingers being inside him, stretching his little hole wide, wide enough to take the cock so thick John’s fingers barely touched around it as he stroked in the cramped space between their bellies.

“Mmmm…” Ronon was licking down the arc of his neck, tasting John and it was the hottest thing ever. 

He tightened his thighs, locked his ankles over the small of Ronon’s back, grabbed fistfuls of dreads and arched back to give his lover more room; took those fingers to the back of his throat and ran his tongue over and between until their owner groaned against John’s collarbone and wiggled their tips encouragingly. Ronon pulled them free a moment later with a filthy slurp that shouldn’t’ve been as hot as it was. John whined at the loss only to pant at their damp touch to his eager hole. He pushed back hard, took two at once down to the second knuckle, hissed with the flare of burn and chased the pressure as Ronon tried to pull back. 

“No! It’s okay, more than okay,” he smirked and watched as the worry in Ronon’s expression darkened with understanding.

Ronon fucked John then, fucked his CO hard with two then three thick long fingers, deep and fast, spreading him with each drive in, making room for himself inside John’s tight heat. His cock jutted angrily from its nest of curls, knocked and slid against John’s in its desire to take what John was offering so willingly.

He shifted John on his lap, pulled his fingers free with a sadistic haste that left John gaping and shocked with emptiness; a display of control that Ronon enjoyed even more than he’d expected as he lunged forward, plunked John back onto the bed and pressed him full beneath him.

“Soon, John,” Ronon breathed into his ear and licked around the pointy tip before he slid down John’s chest, licked circles around pert blushed teats, nipped over ribs, lapped at a panting belly and slurped at John’s navel then gnawed at an arching hip. “I want to taste.”

John moaned, honest-to-god moaned, so loud someone must’ve heard him out in the hallway. Ronon was driving him crazy and now the man had him spread wide, those huge hands hot and gently-insistent on the backs of his thighs – opening him still further – and just _looking!_ John felt heat flush from his hairline to his toes, tensed against the vulnerability and felt a soft reassuring brush of a thumb on his inner thigh.

“Perfect, so perfect.” John didn’t know if he could agree, but he was relieved Ronon liked what he saw.

Any further thought evaporated in the heat of Ronon’s tongue lapping up his cock in one long slick slide of fucking-fantastic heat that swallowed the head, took him down, down till he was scraping tonsils. ‘So fucking good!’

He tried to buck, hips with a mind of their own, but Ronon held him down, pulled up and off before pushing John’s legs against his chest, the movement lifting his ass higher. That tongue was going to be the death of John. Hot sweet sponginess teased at his hole, made it wink and pulse, made John want to hide from how much he wanted this, hide from how much his body gave him away by pushing up into Ronon’s mouth; how it craved and begged and opened on the tip of that tongue. John mewed at the thought of Ronon tasting him, feeling his rim squeeze and flutter around his tongue, like John wanted to squeeze Ronon’s cock as it filled him.

His eyes rolled back in his head, hands rushing to grip the base of his cock, to head off the sudden rush of orgasm building in his balls with every delicate lick Ronon gave him.

 _“R-Ronon!”_ It was a desperate whisper, loud in the quiet laps and wet sucks of Ronon’s diligent attention to detail. “R-Ronon, stop! You’ve…gotta… _stop!”_

John’s urgency pulled Ronon from the bliss that was tasting John, dragging those pretty noises from his lover’s kiss-swollen lips while he played with him, took him apart with just the tip of his tongue. He looked up the length of John’s body to see blown pupils, flushed cheeks and short panting breaths; John was close, closer than Ronon had hoped to take him and his own cock spurted a little at the thought; eager to be where only his tongue had been.

Ronon lunged up, kept a hand on John’s thigh to stay the other man’s movement, nestled the head of his cock teasingly against John’s super-sensitive rim and felt it twitch in welcome. It took all of his considerable self-control not to just breach the delicate pink flesh. 

John could feel Ronon at his entrance, felt himself twitch with readiness, but he needed a second, so worked up he’d blow on entry and John had waited too long for this, had fantasised about it too often. “Top drawer.”

Ronon didn’t want to leave the heat and welcome of John, even for a moment, but he knew even with the tonguing he’d given John, the other man couldn’t take him without extra slick.

The bottle was cool in his heated palm as he looked between the silver squares in the drawer and John.

“I’m clean, you’re clean,” John said with a shake of his head. “Unless you…?”

“No,” Ronon grinned and poured a copious amount of the sweet oil into his palm, “want to feel you, just you.”

“Same.” John murmured as he watched those long fingers work the Athosian oil over hard flesh. 

Their eyes met and locked as Ronon moved back between John’s splayed thighs and slipped three fingers juicily inside John’s body.

“Fuck!” John arched into the intrusion, “fuck me, Ronon, oh god please…just… _fuck me!”_

Ronon grinned against John’s lips, kissed all his feelings into his lover’s mouth, swallowed John’s groan as he pulled his fingers free and lined up his cock in their place.

“Since you asked so nicely,” he whispered, lips just barely grazing soft lips, as he held John’s eyes, wanted to see realisation dawn when the other man felt him within.

John felt Ronon breach him with every part of himself, felt the strong invasive slide, felt himself widen, surrender and enclose around the fucking huge shaft impaling him; skewering him. Deep and hard and unrelenting, it kept coming, filling him, creating a space for Ronon within John; a place where they could be them, together, without separation, without distinction. It was fucking amazing.

Ronon bottomed out, nestled impossibly deep and still, as John flexed and squirmed and fluttered around him, measuring and memorizing the shape and feel of Ronon inside him. He kept eye contact, saw them widen in wonder at the rightness, at the stupidity of long denial. This was how they were meant to be; should have been all along. So much wasted time. He wanted them to stay like this forever, but his body wanted more, would always want more of this; it shifted, moved without his permission, thrust up to meet Ronon as his lover’s hips held him pinned beneath him.

“Ronon?”

“John?” He answered as if he needed the confirmation, the acknowledgement of this reality, because he could barely believe.

“Chewie, you’ve gotta move, _please,_ oh god, please move.” John didn’t care what he sounded like, he just had to feel Ronon moving, taking him, making John his. He needed to be able to move with Ronon, to show the younger man his willingness in this, his want to be part of whatever this was between them; couldn’t leave Ronon with even the slightest doubt that John wanted _all_ of this.

“I’ve got you.” It was a hoarse groan forced out with the motion of his hips, the thrust of his cock working John deep, branding him as Ronon’s.

John’s hands slid in the sweat on his lover’s back, he dug in his nails, left crescents to show his ownership too as he thrust up to meet each lunge, each stroke as Ronon fucked him. So hard and deep that John could feel him at the back of his throat. 

Each blow, each flesh-smacking drive huffed moans from John that Ronon just _had_ to taste. He kissed, feasted on John’s pleasure, felt it fuel his own, felt his heart swell with the knowledge of coming home; of finding home after wandering lost for so long.

He hoisted John’s thigh higher, felt John lift his other to match, felt the angle shift and John open more to him as he bore down, increased his drive.

John was past it. Swathed in heat that was Ronon on him, around him and so deep in him he hoped he never found his way out again. His cock jerked with every thrust, the friction of Ronon’s belly amping up the spark of growing pleasure in his balls, the knot of pressure at the base of his spine, his precome slick against the head. John wanted to hold out longer, wanted more of this fucking-amazing rhythm and being taken, being so totally fucked by Ronon; of Ronon drilling him into the mattress. John didn’t want him to ever stop.

“Oh _jesus_ fuck,” Ronon struck deep, yep…right…there, and again; a grind of his hips and John saw stars, blurred everything except the tight lines of pleasure-held-in-check etched into his lover’s face. “Ronon! Fuck, _R-ro-non!”_

John came, and came, and came, smeared them both from belly to collarbone as Ronon steadily and unwaveringly fucked him through it. Slower but unceasing, groaning as John’s muscles pulsed around his cock, squeezed him like a silk fist. He could never tire of this, of being inside John. He dived and stole the last of John’s whispered moans; kept it safe and secret within him, savoured Trust’s sweet flavour as his balls tightened and his hips stuttered. John pulled him close, wrapped strong arms around broad shoulders and whispered in the crook of Ronon’s neck, “I’ve got you.”

Ronon came with John’s assurance still echoing in his ears, filled John with all that he was, kept filling, until he slowed and collapsed bonelessly into arms stronger than they looked, allowed himself to take if only for this moment of quiet internal chaos. To feel the soft touch of John’s lips on his brow, to know that this was _not_ the fevered dream of a dying soul.

~*~

He must’ve passed out. It couldn’t have been too long though, Ronon was still half hard inside him. Now that was something he’d almost given up hope on ever being able to experience. 

He’d been moved; laid on his side, come matted into his chest hair and plastered to his back where Ronon was spooned into him. John smirked and circled his ass back tentatively felt the rasp of Ronon’s pubes against his cheeks, felt that monster cock nestle deep and his rim twitch to hold it in. He was gonna be sore, would feel Ronon as he walked, sat, hell, even breathed. 

The thought sent a thrill of want coursing through his nerves – so hot it made him shiver, pulled a quiet moan from between his tender lips. He ground down, felt Ronon’s cock answer with an interested twitch. The hand on his belly slid down between his legs, cupped both balls and exhausted dick, ran the pad of thumb and forefinger over his slit. His hips answered, following the pull of Ronon’s hand. John wanted more but he hadn’t had this kind of recovery time in years; too many years.

Ronon’s hips bucked gently in question and John answered in kind, his dick preening for the expert hand that stroked it. Warm lips suckled slow kisses into the nape of his neck.

“Johnnn,” Ronon rumbled, nose tickled by soft black spikes as he tucked a hand behind John’s top knee, lifted it high to fit between and gave a tentative push. “Feel what you do to me.”

John felt it alright, smirked at the evidence growing inside him, brushing deeper along tender super-sensitive tissue, sending sparks of hungry pleasure along strung out nerves. _Please_ was all he could say, all he could think. He wanted this, needed Ronon, would always need. Ronon.

The hunger was still there, lazy, not a driven craving, but a constant hum that allowed for _slow,_ permitted roll and drag on each hot stroke. He felt John clutch at him, try to prevent his withdrawal with weak twitches of his gaping hole. He couldn’t help the surge of dominant pride at having taken what was his, to be taking John again so soon and having John _let_ him.

Ronon kissed down John’s spine, felt John arch into the touch, his head swam with the heated pleasure and hum of his own body as John pushed his ass out and up. He ducked his head into the pillow and just offered it all up to Ronon; let himself be fucked, slow and hard as huge hands kneaded his cheeks tight around sliding cock then wide open to a knowing gaze.

“Touch yourself.” John groaned as he reached down between his thighs; felt the angle shift and the stars blink as Ronon butted his sweet spot.

“Harder,” Ronon growled as he increased his speed, still deep, still measured but closer together, driving John past thought and into begging again.

He bit his lip as his cock breached his fist, over and over, choked-back cry after moan; slipped nearer the edge as fingers dug deep into hips and yanked him back. His tunnel tightened with every stroke of Ronon’s cock and his own hand, until his climax was hovering just there.

“Ronon!” Ronon ran a finger around John’s over-stretched rim, right where they were joined and John saw the darkness of space, the brightness of stars and came in heavy spurts all over his hand and the ruined bedding; pulsed around Ronon’s still-thrusting cock in his ass and slumped headfirst into his pillow.

Ronon growled, yanked on John’s hips and pumped another load of spunk into his lover’s stuffed ass, shoved tight and close, his balls brushing a caress against John’s. His hips flinched with the aftershocks as he pulled slowly out, cock limp and exhausted between his rubbery thighs. Ronon stared, fascinated at John’s thoroughly wrecked hole, gently circled the puffy ring and grinned as it tried weakly to suck his finger inside; John whimpered, his legs giving out and he sprawled across the mussed bed.

“Next time, _you’re_ catching,” John mumbled as Ronon gathered the long lax body back into his arms and closed his eyes.

“If you think you’ll be up for it,” Ronon rumbled with amusement and tugged John back deeper into the curve of chest and thighs.

“Count on it, buddy.”

‘I will,’ Ronon thought as he fell into the most contented sleep he’d had in years.

~*~

It was the tug of dried come on his chest, itchy and gross, that hauled John from Ronon’s furnace-like heat, across the cool floor and into his small bathroom.

The shower was on when he cleared the threshold, Atlantis responding to the thoughts in his head as if he’d spoken them or smoothed his palm over the panel beneath the nozzle. He scratched at his belly and took a piss, the room steaming up with a humid mist that felt amazingly refreshing on his bare skin.

Scorching hot water felt even better as it soaked through to his scalp, sluiced over his shoulders, and down his torso in rivulets that wandered like fingers into all his dips and hollows. John reached for the body wash, foamed up and scrubbed with nervous agitation as the scent of spiced ocean rose from his skin; morning-after’s sucked. They were the main reason he hadn’t dated much, that and the Air Force didn’t go in for guy-on-guy action like John did.

He honestly didn’t know what he’d do, if last night turned out to be all that Ronon wanted.

“Can hear you thinking from the bed,” Ronon groaned in a teasing rumble from the other side of the opaque privacy screen as he peed.

John had no defence so he ducked his head like a naughty kid reporting to the principal and busied his hands scrubbing shampoo through his hair.

“You want this?” Ronon asked, his own worry making the word’s leap forth like shots fired, accusatory and sharp, and without the understanding he’d been aiming for.

John jumped, hadn’t heard the shower door’s usual creak through the water in his ears as he rinsed away the lather. It was typical of Ronon to take them right to the edge, then expect John to reveal himself without a clue of what Ronon thought; no way to judge the outcome except to plunge in deep and ride it out.

John had stepped to the side, had let Ronon in, and now, as the huge guy lathered up and rinsed, John felt cold to his bones; felt the isolated loneliness that a life without Ronon would bring.

‘Fuck that, he’d made his choice last night or back in the cave, whatever.’ He wanted this; wanted Ronon. 

John felt the rippling shudder of tense muscles under his palm as he turned Ronon to face him, felt the now-familiar scrape of ropey dreads over the backs of his hands. 

“I want this, want you.” It was a whisper, barely heard above the relentless drum of water as John pressed his promise, for better or worse, into the mouth of the man he could no longer live without.

Ronon could breathe for the first time since waking to find empty rumpled space instead of John by his side. Never one to do anything other than face the situation, no matter how painful or how wrecked he’d be on the other side, it was always better to know. So Ronon had stepped into the mist of humid heat that held his future and, for better or worse, blurted out the only thing he needed to know.

He yanked the other man in close, long and lean and hot, against his body and turned them both; pushed John into the not-glass wall and chuckled when John winced at the chill.

“Same,” he growled, and cut off John’s relieved laugh with his lips, felt them tingle with remembered contact and hoped that John would always feel like this. No matter their anger, worry, or fear; Ronon would make certain their kisses always felt like this.

~*~

“Well, it’s about time.” Rodney scoffed at the broad grin and sparked happiness that was impossible to miss in Ronon’s face, and the very-flattering bashful blush that painted the colonel’s cheeks as their team leader ducked his forehead into Ronon’s shoulder.

“Seriously Sheppard, how did you ever pass that Mensa test? Teyla and I were beginning to think you two’d never figure it out and we’d be forever stuck in the middle of your epic angst fest.”

“You want to be in the middle McKay?”

“W-What?!” Rodney spluttered and darted his eyes anywhere except at the two men laughing at him.

‘Well, Ronon was laughing at him,’ far too much for the situation, Rodney huffed; Sheppard was too busy eyeing his new boyfriend with a possessive glare, that Rodney had no intention of _ever_ provoking.

“Thank you, no…” he gulped, “…but if I did swing that way – which I most _definitely_ do _not!_ – neither of you would be my type. Blondes, definitely blondes…with… nice…ahhh…” Rodney trailed off as he remembered Teyla’s presence and slumped into the nearest chair.

“Who likes blondes?” Lorne asked as he strode into the conference room with the louver doors turning closed behind him. “Redheads, that’s where the real fun lies.”

John could’ve sworn Teyla blushed but he was too distracted by the game of footsie Ronon had started the moment they’d taken their seats for the briefing.

“Welcome back, Colonel Sheppard,” Lorne smiled, his relief plain in his blue eyes as they met John’s across the table. “P4X-861. Security detail for Dr Rockman and her team while they gather samples; looks like they’ve possibly discovered a plant that’ll cure all lymphatic cancers. The locals, the - ” Lorne paused to check his laptop screen, moved his lips through the pronunciation then looked up again, “- Talnoch’ani, by all accounts, are a friendly bunch, so this’ll be a walk in the park for you, Sir.”

“Lorne?” John ran the toe of his boot along Ronon’s and smirked at his XO, “when have you _ever_ known anything I’m involved in, to be a walk in the park?”

Lorne blushed, tried to think of a diplomatic response and came up empty.

“Exactly.” John laughed, “so situation normal, Major.”

“Yes, Sir,” Lorne agreed as the briefing adjourned, leaving its participants in the happy buzz of familiar routine.

~*~

John lay in the blue light of second moonrise, awake and thoughtful with Ronon curved to his back. It was something he could live with, being held. From habit born of fear, he’d kept himself aloof, always with a conscious space between him and everyone else; no chance of him slipping up, no chance of rumour growing to a charge of _conduct unbecoming,_ no clipping of his wings.

Ronon was different, had always been the one person John had let near, let in; would always let in.

“You think too loud.” John smirked at the disgruntled observation rumbled between his shoulder blades as Ronon tugged him closer and laid a kiss to a vertebra.

“Sorry,” he whispered, the cool ocean air from the open balcony door playing in his passion-mussed hair as he entwined his fingers with the ones resting low on his belly.

“Your thinking need to be talking?” The sweet sleepy rumble was at his ear now.

“I’m out in two years…” John said, quietly, cautiously. “Then I’m done, free. Probably drive you crazy, batting around the house all day.”

Ronon had frozen solid at John’s beginning, had thought, well, it was of no consequence what he’d thought; John’s conclusion had eased him back to languid fluidity, had warmed him to his heart with its implication. He didn’t know how he’d deal with Earthers on Earth, crowding him day after day, but he’d have John; and John was worth everything.

“They’d let me live on Earth?”

“No.” John felt his lover’s fury become a physical heat at his back, glowed with the power of Ronon’s feelings for him and pressed into it in reassurance. It sucked that Ronon still wasn’t trusted by the brass; still considered alien – if not a direct threat – despite Ronon being hugely responsible for preventing a Wraith invasion of Earth. “Not without tracking you every second.”

Ronon thought that sounded too much like being a Runner.

“Will you leave?” 

John’s heart clenched at the thought of leaving his city, his family; but he nodded against the worn fabric of his pillow and sighed in acceptance.

“Yeah.” John felt fractured, held together only by the strength of the arms keeping him close. He rolled, turned to face Ronon. 

‘Damn you’re beautiful.’ John thought as he soothed away the tremor that jumped beneath smooth caramel skin. ‘How’d I get so lucky?’

“Know somewhere we can go?” He asked, his lips tugging into his customized smirk as he watched the spark of hope flare and catch in soft brown eyes.

Ronon’s heart couldn’t take it. His lover was choosing him over his _planet;_ had chosen _him._ This was his chance, his life handed back to him, and more. His arms tightened, fingers tangling in ridiculously-mangled hair and yanking narrow hips impossibly close, as he kissed John; drank his moan and offered his own in trade.

“I know of a planet,” he grinned when he pulled back just enough to bring John’s face into sharp focus.

John ground his hips and rolled on top as he shoved Ronon onto his back; nestled snug between willingly-parted thighs and stroked shapeless patterns into the sensitive hollows and plains of Ronon’s taut belly. 

“Does it have good surf?”


End file.
